A door to the present. After five decades, Cubans will be able to open small and medium-sized private companies and even aspire to hire employees, as part of a series of economic opening measures that had been postponed for years.
As of September 20 and according to Decree-Law 46, different types of properties and economic participants called "actors that influence the productive transformation of the country" will be recognized and will be given the form of Limited Liability, SRL.
The decree establishes that the smallest businesses may have from one to 10 employees and the large ones up to 100. Before that, they must register in the commercial registry and be approved by the Ministry of Economy. In the new economic provision, the Cuban government will allow all activities, with some exceptions, such as publishing newspapers or magazines, education or those related to professions such as architects or lawyers.
“There was a euphemism for calling a restaurant owner when he had hired 70 workers. In practice it was already necessary to create legal societies. I think that the positive thing about these legal norms is that they have arrived”, says the economist Omar Everlenys Pérez.
For some entrepreneurs like Carlos Gómez, owner of "Wajiros Films", an audiovisual production company, the reforms are well received. “That tranquility of feeling protected and feeling that I can make my dream of having a company come true here in my country, in Cuba. Whatever the obstacle, the difficulties, for me it is comforting”, adds Gómez.
“We would be more organized because after having belonged to a large company - the State -, we would belong to a smaller company, so we would be more organized, better managed and we would have better functions and results”, says Yuliet Legrand, salesperson of jewelry in Havana.
The rules are not new: they had been eliminated in 1968 in a communist government crackdown on private property. Cuban leaders have always been against private economic activity, describing it as a necessary evil to provide jobs and services that the State could not provide.
These reforms come after the political crisis that unleashed opposition protests in July, when thousands of people took to the streets to reject the shortages and power cuts. In 2020, the island's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell by 11 percent.
With PA
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